Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, the immediate past Minister/Deputy Chairman, National Planning Commission (NPC), has faulted claims by President Muhammadu Buhari that his administration met an empty treasury.

Suleiman said the former administration as at May 29 left behind $30 billion, adding that the sum would have been higher had the governors not insisted on sharing the fund.

He warned that the former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, must not be criminalized and painted a plunderer and looter of the nation’s treasury before the generality of Nigerians.

The clarification was in response to the President’s statement during in an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, where he was quoted to have said that his government met “virtually an empty treasury.”

President Buhari reportedly said that it was a disgrace that Nigeria cannot pay salaries of its workforce.

Expressing his dismay over the President’s statement, Sulaiman in a statement in Abuja described the report as “unscientific…